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‘I am Not a Klopp Clone,’ Insists Slot

Arne Slot admitted he had big shoes to fill. Photograph: Craig Brough/Action Images/Reuters
Arne Slot admitted he had big shoes to fill. Photograph: Craig Brough/Action Images/Reuters
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‘I am Not a Klopp Clone,’ Insists Slot

Arne Slot admitted he had big shoes to fill. Photograph: Craig Brough/Action Images/Reuters
Arne Slot admitted he had big shoes to fill. Photograph: Craig Brough/Action Images/Reuters

Arne Slot believes Liverpool need only marginal improvement to win the Premier League and has insisted there is more to his football style than being a clone of Jürgen Klopp.

Liverpool unveiled their new head coach on Friday almost five weeks after he officially started. One reason for the delay was to put distance between Slot and Klopp’s emotional farewell, although the 45-year-old’s predecessor still loomed large over proceedings. Klopp’s name was mentioned 11 times during the press conference – on seven occasions in questions asked by the media – and Slot, while admitting he had “big shoes to fill”, claimed he relished the opportunity to build on his predecessor’s legacy.

The former Feyenoord coach said: “Margins are small [at the top of the Premier League] and sometimes it’s difficult if the margins are small and you’ve inherited a team that’s doing really well as there are only a few percentage to improve. But that last few percentage makes the difference between winning it, competing to the last day or ending up number three. Our aim should be that we want to win it and we want to be on top of the league.

“This is what we’re aiming for – to get the best out of the players to reach the maximum – and then the margins will decide. But to get in that position it takes a lot of hard work on a daily basis and we have to come in here and improve and improve and improve and improve.”

Liverpool’s new sporting director, Richard Hughes, sat alongside Slot and admitted that Feyenoord’s “front-foot, attacking football, played with intelligence and passion” not only made the Dutchman their first choice to succeed Klopp but suited the squad. Both men indicated there were unlikely to be wholesale changes this summer, given the quality at Slot’s disposal and the rebuilding work done last year.

Hughes would not give an update on the contract situations of Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, all of whom have 12 months on their deals, other than to say: “The only concern I have, that Arne has, about those situations is that there is total commitment from the players to the cause for next season, and we are absolutely convinced that is the case.”

Slot said of his approach: “I don’t take over from a manager where I have to change the playing style completely. At my former club Feyenoord I would say the playing style was completely different [when he arrived] to the style I wanted to implement. Now there are a lot of similarities but of course I am not a clone of Jürgen. We will have some differences and I think the players will see them but also some similarities as well. Ideally I would have started in a season when there were no Euros and no Copa América but that’s not the situation and you have to take it the way it is. The good thing is after the first game we have a few normal [free] weeks so pre-season can continue into the season.”

Darwin Núñez has flourished at the Copa América with Uruguay and as the focal point of Marcelo Bielsa’s attack. Slot has spoken with the striker, who cut a frustrated figure under Klopp at the end of the last campaign, and suggested Núñez would have a fixed position at centre-forward.

“I assume he will fit really well into this [style] because I like him, I’ve told him already,” said Slot. “He might have had some struggles with finishing opportunities but he came a lot of times into those positions. It’s clear for him which position he is going to play. It’s clear for me as well. I just told him that, from what I saw, he played multiple positions and what positions – or position – I see him playing.”

Slot revealed he attended a game at Anfield in 2017, a 2-0 win over Tottenham when Sadio Mané scored twice. That was his only visit before being appointed Liverpool’s head coach. He said: “I knew Pepijn [Lijnders, former Liverpool assistant manager] for a long time and met him at the training ground. The club I was working with at the time, Cambuur Leeuwarden, had contact with Julian Ward [Liverpool’s former sporting director] about loan players.

“I was there as a professional but I enjoyed the game. I had a look and feel for the club, but not in a way that I would assume that seven years later I would be in this position. It was before they won the league and the Champions League but everyone was positive even back then without the team at that stage winning trophies.”

The Guardian Sport

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Mediocre Euros, Copa América Show There is Such a Thing as Too Much Football

At the Euros, transport infrastructure broke down, basic security was inept and illogical and no effort was made to tackle the scourge of beer being used as a projectile. - Reuters
At the Euros, transport infrastructure broke down, basic security was inept and illogical and no effort was made to tackle the scourge of beer being used as a projectile. - Reuters
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Mediocre Euros, Copa América Show There is Such a Thing as Too Much Football

At the Euros, transport infrastructure broke down, basic security was inept and illogical and no effort was made to tackle the scourge of beer being used as a projectile. - Reuters
At the Euros, transport infrastructure broke down, basic security was inept and illogical and no effort was made to tackle the scourge of beer being used as a projectile. - Reuters

On the one hand, the best side in both the Euros and Copa América ended up triumphant. On the other hand, there was just about everything else, from the general quality of play to the fact football’s authorities seem to have entirely lost the capacity to stage matches. However bad Uefa’s organisation of various aspects of the Euros was, what happened at Hard Rock Stadium was on a different level.

An inquiry will presumably be held to determine exactly who or what was to blame for the scenes that delayed kick-off by 75 minutes and led to as an estimated 7,000 fans without tickets gaining access to the ground, but what is clear is that there is need of major improvement before the stadium hosts seven games at the World Cup finals in 2026. It’s not just a question of more security: lengthy queues in searing heat are not a solution to anything.

What happened at Hard Rock Stadium was just the culmination of a month of desperate organisation. The tournament was hosted by Conmebol with little input from officials on the ground in the US, but lessons must be taken by Fifa before the World Cup returns to America in less than two years. Even before Sunday’s chaos, there had been the scenes at the semi-final as Uruguay’s players waded into the stand to, as they saw it, protect their families from Colombian fans.

At the Euros, transport infrastructure broke down, basic security was inept and illogical and no effort was made to tackle the scourge of beer being used as a projectile.

An inability to handle large crowds has been an increasing feature of recent Uefa tournaments, and it shouldn’t be forgotten that eight people died in a crush outside an Africa Cup of Nations game in Yaoundé, Cameroon, two years ago. Although many have said that there were few such issues at the last World Cup in Qatar, the circumstances were very different.

Both the Euros and the Copa América suffered from poor playing surfaces. Frankfurt was the worst surface in Germany, cutting up dreadfully, apparently because of a poor re-lay after an NFL game was staged there in November. In Düsseldorf, Uefa insisted the pitch be relaid three times between the end of the domestic season and the start of the Euros; not surprisingly, there was no time for it to bed in. There were problems in Hamburg and Gelsenkirchen as well.

At Copa América, the problem was playing in NFL stadiums, which meant pitches were often narrower than usual and that natural turf had to be hastily laid over artificial surfaces. Again, bedding in was a problem, leading to larger and looser divots, while in certain cases it appeared pallets had not been adequately fitted so the joins between adjoining tiles created gaps and ridges. Given eight of the 14 stadiums will be used at the World Cup, that is something for Fifa to consider with a degree of urgency. Conmebol seemed more concerned with the nonsense of a Shakira concert that meant half-time of the final had to be extended. How about just doing the football right?

But beyond the specifics, there has been something more existential going on. Neither the Euros nor Copa América produced consistently high-level football. Uruguay aside, pressing was limited. That’s often the case in the international game and is understandable, given the lack of time available for coaches to work with their players. Matches are far more regularly determined by individual moments. The lower quality is often offset by a greater sense of struggle and drama. In both tournaments this summer, though, the sense has been of fatigue.
Everybody is exhausted. That’s why teams so often, having taken the lead, sat back: try to hold on, run less, go again only if we have to. It’s why so many players underperformed. It’s why the most thrilling football tended to be played by countries with fewer players operating at the highest club level.

In part, that’s still the hangover from the Covid lockdown and the subsequent disruption in the calendar caused by a December World Cup in 2022. For Uefa and Conmebol there have been three major international tournaments in three years. Nobody has had a proper break since before the pandemic. On top of that, Fifa wants everybody to come back to the US next summer for the Club World Cup, although with players and clubs protesting, no venues booked and no TV deal signed, there must be at least some doubt that will go ahead.

Something, somewhere, has to give. The present fixture list is unsustainable, for players and – possibly – for the audience. The game’s authorities have to give that serious consideration, but as the last month has shown, both in Europe and in the Americas, it’s been a long time since they could be trusted to act for the good of the actual game.

The Guardian Sport